The Queue: A Thankful Aftermath

Up here it was just a Thursday, but down there y’all were being thankful for stuff. Hopefully you had a good holiday — if you did not, well, I hope things kick up and you have a good weekend. Let’s do the Queue, everyone.

The original Ata’mal Crystal was the one that Velen used to summon the Naaru — it predated Velen’s time and was considered so sacred by the ancient Eredar that only the leaders of all of their people could even access it. When Sargeras arrived and recruited the Eredar to join the Burning Crusade, Velen meditated on the Crystal in an attempt to calm himself over his misgivings and the Ata’mal Crystal allowed the Prophet to contact the Naaru.

The original crystal shattered into shards, each with unique properties such as Leafshadow. The seven shards each match a color of the visual spectrum of light – Leafshadow, for example, is a green crystal. The original crystal contained all seven hues within itself. The Crystal is powered by the Light, although some speculate that one of the shards came to Azeroth with the Horde and was the crystal that Alexandros Mograine found that became part of Ashbringer. That indicates that the Crystals can also work with Void energy, but there’s no direct evidence of this.

So far, the Heart of Fury and Spirit’s Song have appeared in game, with an alternate timeline version of Leafshadow appearing in Warlords. The others have not yet appeared.

We do not know specifically how the mechanics of the corruption would occur. We know that Sargeras destroyed one that might have been corrupted — the world it was sleeping inside was, and Sargeras assumed it would have been born as a Void Titan, but he didn’t actually know for sure because no one’s ever seen one.

Certainly the Old Gods’ corrupting whispers can drive us mad, but whether or not that’s all that’s needed, we simply don’t know. The whole idea of imprisoning them inside Azeroth seems to indicate that it isn’t — why would the Titans bother to try and do that if it had no chance of working? But whether or not they know what they’re doing in this regard isn’t something we know, either.

Here’s a question in response — why would they?

The Unseen Path, for example, has existed in the background for tens of thousands of years, even since the Legion first attacked Azeroth, and they haven’t gotten involved in a single one of Azeroth’s calamitous wars since. They didn’t tell the Trolls to back off when they attacked Silvermoon, they didn’t tell Humans to stop during the Troll Wars, they haven’t taken part in the Qiraji wars or the First, Second or even Third War. They definitely seem to not want to do much of anything unless it looks like they have to.

Odyn’s Valarjar don’t care if people die in war. Heck, he might even like war as a means to test the people of Azeroth for worthiness, if he even decides to start recruiting other non-Vrykul like the Battlelord. The Order of the Silver Hand might splinter as it’s got Horde and Alliance in it, not sure how that’s going to work.

And that’s assuming the PC’s who are leaders of these mighty class orders stay in them. Maybe you canonically retire after Argus. But I’m not holding out much hope that all of Azeroth’s Warlocks or Mages are going to step in and save us — people of all classes have been willfully slaughtering each other as soon as a threat is over since Warcraft I.

Nope. It’s a game mechanic. Arthas would obviously destroy just about any Virmen who he encountered, but they still have to provide a challenge for your character when leveling, even if only a minor one.

Leveling and gearing up in MMO’s aren’t really incorporated into the storytelling outside of rare quests and items like the Artifacts, where it’s as much story as gameplay. Usually, it’s understood that leveling up is a means for the game to extend itself.

I’ve often wondered if WoW could get away with a level squish like it did with item levels –would players accept it if after Battle for Azeroth the next expansion squished all levels down to, say, 60? I really have no idea but it’s something I muse about from time to time. Some players really enjoy leveling and wouldn’t like it, that much I am convinced of.

But overall I just take leveling weirdness like Arthas being weaker than random five man boss in a later expansion in stride. In a straight up fight Deathwing was probably way stronger than a lot of bosses from Mists or Warlords. I’m not even convinced that he couldn’t have wiped the floor with a lot of Legion bosses — beating him required all four other Aspects, an artifact of immense power, and the forces of the Horde and Alliance plus two fights.

Not all Dark Irons consider her or her son to be legitimate rulers — Moira is a Bronzebeard who only holds power as a Regent, and her son is seen as a half-Bronzebeard puppet. Moira has enemies who would see the Dark Irons free of her and their role on the council, and a lot of those enemies are as sympathetic to the Twilight’s Hammer as the ones we saw in BRD.

For that matter, who knows? Maybe there are a different group of Dark Irons on Kul Tiras. The island was originally off the coast of Dwarf lands and it was a mineral rich place, perhaps after the War of the Three Hammers some Dark Irons went over there and isolated themselves from the rest of their people.

Okay, have a happy weekend everybody. I got my eye injections yesterday as I type this, so I’ll be taking it easy for the rest of the weekend.